


The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon presents: True Confessions with Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak

by kyaticlikestea



Series: Richie Tozier is famous and loves his boyfriend, OK [4]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Bisexual Eddie Kaspbrak, Comedian Richie Tozier, Game Shows, Gay Richie Tozier, Interviews, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier's Stand Up Act, Social Media, Talk Shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21565129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyaticlikestea/pseuds/kyaticlikestea
Summary: Jimmy:Now, you’ve both provided the truth in the envelope for us, so no complaining if you end up revealing something that should have remained a dark secret forever.Richie:No chance. Edward Spaghedward knows everything there is to know about me, don’t you? I’d never hide a thing.Eddie:Oh, so we’re not counting last week, when you hid our credit card statement down the back of the couch so that I wouldn’t find out you spent a stupid amount of money on a light-up pool table?Richie makes a press appearance on The Tonight Show to promote his forthcoming sophomore comedy special. His Twitter celebrity boyfriend makes a surprise appearance. Late night TV will do just about anything for the views. Eddie won't.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Richie Tozier is famous and loves his boyfriend, OK [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530359
Comments: 88
Kudos: 1704





	The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon presents: True Confessions with Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak

_**[Edited recorded transcript of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, with Richie Tozier and a special guest, aired 25th November 2019]** _

_[The commercial break ends. The audience applauds for no apparent reason as the camera settles on host Jimmy Fallon, sat behind the desk on set, beaming at the camera like he's just heard that he's won a million bucks. He hasn't, coincidentally.]_

**Jimmy:** Our final guest is an Emmy-nominated comedian, whose comeback show, [Don’t Call My Boyfriend Gay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219578), broke every single streaming record, and also broke new ground. Not just because it was an emotional show about the LGBT experience, but because it included the most jokes about fanny packs of any show ever recorded. _[audience laughs]_ A year later, and he’s back with his new show, Hold My Fanny Pack, which will be available on Netflix from December 1st. Critics have, predictably, called it groundbreaking in the fanny pack field. _[audience laughs]_ Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Richie Tozier!

_[Richie enters to the tune of Pharrell Williams' 'Happy', played by The Roots as house band, and waves to the audience before sitting down in the seat next to Jimmy. He’s wearing a suit with a dark green jacket which, to the discerning eye, is a Beverly Marsh original. To the undiscerning eye, it’s still a pretty nice suit. He’s also wearing bright yellow socks. Those are not Beverly Marsh originals.]_

**Jimmy:** Good to have you here!

 **Richie:** Yeah, you’re very fortunate. _[audience laughs]_ I had to cancel a thing to be here. 

**Jimmy:** Oh, I’m sorry, man! What was that?

 **Richie:** It’s actually my turn to cook tonight. I was going to make a ragu.

 **Jimmy:** That sounds pretty good. I hope Eddie doesn’t mind us stealing you for the night.

 **Richie:** Are you kidding? As soon as he realised I was on chef duty, he booked me on this show himself. _[audience laughs]_ No, he had every right to do it. I try so hard, no-one can fault me for that, but the only thing that Gordon Ramsay and I have in common is that both our foreheads look like the roiling surface of the sea. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** Oh, c’mon. You look good! 

**Richie:** The suit’s doing all the work. All of it. That and the general glow of true love and getting laid every morning. 

**Jimmy:** Ah, that’s the Richie we all know and - 

**Richie:** \- and tolerate, yeah.

 **Jimmy:** You said it, not me. Anyway, let’s talk about your new show! 

**Richie:** Oh God, _let’s_. I feel like I haven’t talked about it enough. _[audience laughs]_ No, but really. I’m very proud of it. It’s a bit of a, uh, departure for me, honestly. Not in terms of, like - it’s nothing that I haven’t done before, but it’s definitely stuff that I haven’t done for a while. Like, since before colour television. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** But isn’t the same true of your last show?

 **Richie:** I mean, yeah, to an extent, but that show was - I wrote that show in a very specific set of circumstances, you know? Like, I wrote it after going through what my therapist calls ‘prolonged and recurrent trauma’, and what I call ‘a really bad time’, so it was a kind of catharsis, that show, and it was also my way of coming out, so it kind of had to do all these things at once. It had to explain where I’d been for the past 2 years, and it had to help me put the past behind me so that I could actually do the show, and it had to reveal my deepest secret to the great American public, and it also had to make them laugh at least once. Oh, and it had to prop up the dying fanny pack industry. _[audience laughs]_ Whereas this new show - it’s very much me finding my feet in the wake of the first one. Does that make sense?

 **Jimmy:** I think so, kinda. The first show was like your baby, and this one is the stroppy teen. 

**Richie:** Yeah, in a way. Except Eddie likes to call it my sophomore show, because he’s the cutest man who ever opened a dictionary. It has a complicated relationship to the first one, because it has to build on it, but it also has to stand by itself. People keep asking me if I’m worried about it not living up to Don’t Call My Boyfriend Gay, you know, and it’s like… yes! Don’t ask me that, Susan! I’m at Costco and I’m just trying to buy a month’s supply of almond milk for my feisty boyfriend! I don’t need to think about that right now! 

**Jimmy:** Man, I bet it’s a great show, though. Not that I’d know, thanks to the embargo. 

**Richie:** I know, it’s so dramatic, right?

 **Jimmy:** No pre-streaming reviews at all! 

**Richie:** Nope. And everyone who was at the recording had to sign an NDA. I felt like Trump’s secretary. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** What was the marketing decision behind that?

 **Richie:** I just literally don’t want anyone to know what the hell they’re letting themselves in for when they click ‘watch’ on Netflix. I want them to look at the image of my face, click ‘play’ and just have their brains turn into, like, oatmeal. With sprinkles. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** Your first show was very much about coming out, but also about your boyfriend. Like, a lot about your boyfriend. _[audience laughs]_

 **Richie:** I have absolutely no idea what you mean. I feel like I hardly mention him at all. 

**Jimmy:** Yeah, my mistake. Is this show in the same sort of wheelhouse, would you say?

 **Richie:** Uh, yes and no. I mean, it’s about my life, which includes being gay and also my boyfriend, so he’s in there a lot. He’s just the best part of my life, so of course he’s in it. It definitely has a different angle, though. I feel like my first show - not my first show, but my first show that counts, you know - was kind of about finding yourself, and being OK with yourself, and this one is about all the cool sh- uh, stuff that happens after you get to that point. Because honestly, not everyone in my position gets to that point, and I’m very aware of how lucky I am. So of course, the obvious thing to do was to write a comedy show about it.

 **Jimmy:** And how does Eddie feel about being in all of your jokes?

 **Richie:** He hates it! Oh man, he hates it so much. He found my joke notebook literally the other day - 

**Jimmy:** Your joke notebook?

 **Richie:** Yeah, I write down all my jokes in this really disgusting old reporter’s notebook with, like, a magnet stuck to the back with duct tape, and it lives on our fridge, and whenever I have an idea for a bit, I have to write it down, because my ADD just yeets it out my brainhole if I don’t. So yeah, he found my notebook, and he opened it, because he’s the worst, and he found my Eddie section. 

**Jimmy:** Oh no. 

**Richie:** I know what you’re thinking. You think he found the part where I’d perfectly crafted every single joke about, like, his hypochondria and his fake asthma and his dumb loafers and his eyebrows and his stupidly pert ass. 

**Jimmy:** Something like that, yeah. Did he not?

 **Richie:** Nope. My Eddie section is the part where every page just says Eddie on it, and I’ve dotted the ‘i’ in Eddie with a little heart. 

**Jimmy:** Oh man. How many pages are we talking?

 **Richie:** Not that many! Maybe like, 50, tops.

 **Jimmy:** Oh, not many, then. 

**Richie:** Anyway, he took a photo of every single page and put them all up on Twitter, and it got something ridiculous like 100,000 likes, and when I came home from the store he was like, “I really feel like you need some new material, dude,” and I was like, “babe, no, I’m gonna write a bit about this exact moment, it’s gonna be hilarious, I don’t need any more material, you’re like a walking joke textiles shop,” and then I wrote a bit about it in the notebook and ripped it out and folded it up and put it under his pillow to see if he’d dream about it subconsciously. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** And did he?

 **Richie:** Nah, he had a nightmare about clowns. But you know how it is.

 **Jimmy:** So, what, let me in on how it works. You write a joke…

 **Richie:** Yeah, congrats. You’re really starting to get it! 

**Jimmy:** … and then you, what, show it to him? And he signs off on it? 

**Richie:** He has a special ‘signing off on Richie’s bullshit’ quill, yeah. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** Man, you might be joking, but from what you’ve said… 

**Richie:** No, no, I’m just being a jerk. He doesn’t sign off on any of it, actually. Not because I don’t give a - because I just say whatever, but because he doesn’t need to. I don’t write stuff that’s gonna be, like, a problem. I just. _[He shrugs]_ I know where the line is. 

**Jimmy:** Oh, so there _is_ a line?

 **Richie:** Well, yeah. Of course there is. We both know what’s off limits, and we don’t go there. Me with my act, and him with his horrible cyberbullying Twitter account. 

**Jimmy:** And so do you sign off on his tweets?

 **Richie:** Dude, no. What’s your obsession with, like, bureaucracy? Is this like a sex thing for you? _[audience laughs]_ No, I don’t _[he makes air quotations]_ sign off on his tweets. It’s this thing called mutual respect and knowing each other super well, Jimothy. No need to sign off on stuff when you already know what’s gonna fly and what won’t. You and your wife should try it some time. Honestly, it’s like, halved our special quill budget.

 **Jimmy:** So where is the line?

 **Richie:** Oh man, I can’t tell you! There’s a line! Telling you where it is would completely, like, negate the point of it. But you know, you grow up together in a famous murder town _[someone whoops]_ \- yeah, you’ve all been listening to that Derry Exposed true crime podcast that’s everywhere lately, but let me tell you, it’s different when you’re ten and you’re, like, walking home from school with a butter knife tucked up your sleeve because you’re at risk of being jumped by an actual serial killer. Anyway, it turns out that when half of your trauma is basically shared with your other half, and also involves, uh, viscera, you know pretty well what the boundaries are, because his boundaries are mine and mine are his, so we don’t really need to, like, hash it out. We just know and trust each other. And also sometimes make out. A lot. Often against the fridge, which doesn’t help the appearance of my joke notebook, let me tell you. That thing’s been rubbed off more than I have. _[audience laughs; someone whoops]_

 **Jimmy:** So the joke notebook, that’s gotta be a fairly new thing, right? I mean, you’ve been pretty open recently about the fact that there were a good few years where you didn’t write your own material.

 **Richie:** Yeah, unfortunately. It’s not something I’m super proud of now, but I think anyone who’s seen my last special will get that it wasn’t something I did just to get famous; it was literally self-preservation, you know. And it was this whole thing, actually. Like, you need to know, when I first started doing this, just at shitty college open mic nights or whatever, it was all my own material. I didn't do it to get rich. If I had, I'd have been pretty let down. _[He shakes his head, grins]_ I lived off, like, ramen noodles for about a year, and I would buy them in bulk and only use half of a seasoning sachet at a time so that I could make them go further. 

**Jimmy:** Wow.

 **Richie:** Yeah, I wasn’t exactly living it up at college. I, uh, didn’t have any financial support from the ol’ folks, and all my tuition was paid for, thanks to a scholarship I got for having a crush on a boy at school who was actually impressed when I got the top grade in - well, in everything, actually. Just to humble brag there. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah! Ghostwriters. I didn’t have them. Because I was more broke than the springs of my boyfriend’s mother’s bed.

 **Jimmy:** Thanks for that image. _[audience laughs]_

 **Richie:** You’re absolutely welcome. But yeah, I was writing all my own stuff, and it was going pretty good. Had a decent little following built up, got paid for most of my gigs, got a rep as the guy you’d book if you needed someone consistent to fill the line-up. Reliable. Going somewhere on my own merit. And then I did this show in a bar in New York and I got spotted by, like, this honest-to-god Hollywood dream team, and they were like, “yeah, yeah, we love your stuff… could you maybe just do less of it, and more of ours, and we’ll pay you so much money that you can afford to hire someone to cook your ramen for you?” And so of course, I was like, hell yeah, this is everything I ever wanted, right? Getting paid to tell jokes! I mean, I’d always wanted to get paid to tell _my_ jokes, but it didn’t seem so bad to do both. So of course I said yes. And, well, not to get too Judy Garland on you, but once someone _owns_ you like that, it’s a slippery slope from “your stuff is great, sure, but we’re just trying to hit a different market at the moment, so we’re gonna put some of our stuff in, too,” to “your delivery is great, but the material just isn’t working, so we’re gonna write it all for you and slap your name on it and give you 40% of the cut, and also completely shape your persona into something that’s gonna haunt your personal life and change how you view yourself to the point that looking in a mirror feels like looking at the portrait of a sad, haunted man.” _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** Wow. That’s, uh, a lot. 

**Richie:** Sorry. You know how it is with us gays and our trauma. 

**Jimmy:** But these new shows you’re doing, you wrote them all.

 **Richie:** I did! _[Cheers]_ Thank you, thank you. All those people who liked my stuff back in, like, 1999, before I made it big and sold my soul - you’re gonna love it. It’s all vintage Richie Tozier, but _better_ , because now I’m not so deeply closeted that I’m finding all my material at the back of my wardrobe.

 **Jimmy:** What _is_ at the back of your wardrobe these days? Don’t think we haven’t all noticed the recent style overhaul.

 **Richie:** I don’t know. I don’t go in my closet any more. It took me thirty years to come out of it. I’m not about to go back in. I’m serious! I don’t. I have, like, a floordrobe. All of my clothes exist in this, sort of, protean, shape-shifting pile in the corner of our bedroom. It’s the worst part of my boyfriend’s life. He hates it. He threatens to burn it twice a day if I don’t hang up at least two items of clothing in the closet. Which is actually a hate crime, if you think about it. 

**Jimmy:** How so, because he hates your floordrobe?

 **Richie:** No! Because he’s basically forcing me back into the closet! _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** _[Laughs far too hard, slapping the desk, wiping his eyes]_ Oh man. I don’t think that making you use a closet is, uh, a hate crime, though.

 **Richie:** Well, that’s a very straight thing you just said. I’m gonna write an article for Buzzfeed. ‘Jimmy Fallon, who doesn’t even have an Emmy, forces twice Emmy-nominated comedian back into the closet, live on air’.

 **Jimmy:** I have four Emmy awards!

 **Richie:** Oh, now you’re bullying me about your Emmy awards! The hate crimes just keep piling up. Honestly, you sound like my boyfriend. 

**Jimmy:** I’ve seen your boyfriend’s Twitter, I’m taking that as a compliment. 

**Richie:** You should. He’s the funniest person I know. He’s gonna come for all our jobs. _[someone cheers]_ Yeah, that person gets it.

 **Jimmy:** I’m kind of mad that [Kimmel got there first with the tweets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229949). We need the YouTube hits.

 **Richie:** Well, it’s a Jimmy eat Jimmy world out there. 

**Jimmy:** I’m guessing that was a Jimmy Eat World joke?

 **Richie:** Yeah, that was my attempt at engaging with straight culture. Did it work?

 **Jimmy:** Yeah, it worked real good when we were temporarily transported back to 2009.

 **Richie:** ‘Jimmy Fallon, who has four Emmy awards and is a total dick about it, commits hate crime upon hate crime live on air.’ _[audience laughs]_ You’re done for, Fallon. Kimmel’s gonna grind you into paste.

 **Jimmy:** Well, luckily for the future of this show, we have our own games to play with you.

 **Richie:** That’s honestly the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard someone say to my face, and I grew up with a serial killer.

 **Jimmy:** Man, they’re gonna get you on that True Crime podcast circuit before you know it. 

**Richie:** God, I hope so. I’m gonna snatch so many edges. _[He frowns]_ Is that right? Did I say the cool youth thing?

 **Jimmy:** I’m 45, man. I have no clue. Anyway, that was me attempting to segue to True Confessions.

 **Richie:** Ooh, I’m excited for this. 

**Jimmy:** There’s no way I’m gonna win this. Your life is so weird.

 **Richie:** That’s another hate crime.

 **Jimmy:** You’re gonna hate me even more when you see the surprise we have lined up for you.

 **Richie:** Man, you’re lucky Eddie isn’t here. He hates surprises. 

**Jimmy:** Oh yeah?

 **Richie:** Yeah! 

**Jimmy:** Well, luckily for us, it turns out that he might hate being on the receiving end - 

**Richie:** Oh, he doesn’t. _[audience laughs]_

 **Jimmy:** \- of surprises, but he doesn’t mind doling them out. 

**Richie:** _[whispering]_ What the...

_[Cut to - the True Confessions set. Jimmy and Richie are sat at a three-sided table. There is one empty chair opposite Richie. The lighting is low and atmospheric, reminiscent of a bad 1940s detective pastiche. There are prop cigarettes in an ashtray in the middle of the table, and disposable cups of coffee.]_

**Jimmy:** Are you ready for your surprise?

 **Richie:** Honestly, I think the empty chair has kind of given it away, but I’m absolutely not going to say no to my boyfriend making a dramatic entrance, if that’s what you’re asking. 

**Jimmy:** Oh, that is exactly what I’m asking. _[He calls over his shoulder]_ Detective Kaspbrak?

 **Richie:** _[obviously excited]_ Oh my God.

_[Eddie enters off stage, dressed completely normally in a casual suit with his sleeves rolled up, looking slightly reticent to be there. The audience applause; someone whoops appreciatively, and he rolls his eyes. He takes the seat opposite Richie and Richie beams at him. Eddie folds his arms and is obviously trying quite hard not to smile back.]_

**Richie:** This is my surprise? Neat!

 **Jimmy:** Uh, it’s half of it.

 **Eddie:** _[unhappily]_ They wanted me to wear a detective outfit.

 **Richie:** And you said no? Why?!

 **Eddie:** Because they wanted me to wear a detective outfit. 

**Richie:** Don’t you care for me at all? _[He leans forward, lowers his voice theatrically]_ Were there suspenders?

 **Eddie:** Oh, my God. 

**Richie:** That’s not a no. 

**Eddie:** No, it’s not. 

**Richie:** _[to Jimmy]_ Hey, can we keep the costume even though he didn’t wear it?

 **Jimmy:** Uh, no. It’s a rental. 

**Eddie:** There is a God. 

**Richie:** And yet he has betrayed me in this, of all things, despite me being one of his chosen people. 

**Eddie:** Let me guess. The costume department is homophobic? 

**Richie:** Hell no! They were gonna put you in _suspenders._ They’re the biggest gay allies around. You’re the homophobe, because you won’t wear them. 

**Eddie:** Ah yes, I’m a homophobe for not wearing suspenders on national television for the sexual gratification of my boyfriend.

 **Richie:** Exactly. A hate crime.

 **Jimmy:** Now that we’ve sorted out the costume department, it’s time to play True Confessions! The rules are as follows. Each of us has two envelopes on the table before them. In one envelope is a true statement, provided to us by the player, and in the other is a lie, made up by our production staff. When it’s our turn, another player will choose the envelope for us to read from, and we have to convince the rest of the players that what is written on that card is the truth, even if it’s the lie. Everyone on board?

 **Richie:** I’m honestly still ruined by the loss of the suspenders. I don’t know if I can continue. 

**Eddie:** You can’t lose what you never had, dude. 

**Richie:** But now I’ve got the image in my head!

 **Eddie:** Well, you can lose that. 

**Jimmy:** Now, you’ve both provided the truth in the envelope for us, so no complaining if you end up revealing something that should have remained a dark secret forever. 

**Richie:** No chance. Edward Spaghedward knows everything there is to know about me, don’t you? I’d never hide a thing.

 **Eddie:** Oh, so we’re not counting last week, when you hid our credit card statement down the back of the couch so that I wouldn’t find out you spent a stupid amount of money on a light-up pool table?

 **Jimmy:** Oh no.

 **Richie:** How did you find out about that?

 **Eddie:** Online banking, moron. Come on, man. I’m 43. I have a smartphone. 

**Richie:** I know you have a smartphone, Mr Number 3 on Buzzfeed’s Top 10 Twitter Accounts of 2019.

 **Eddie:** Shut up. Don’t change the subject.

 **Richie:** What, I can’t brag about your achievements on Jimmy Fallon’s dime?

 **Eddie:** You just want me to forget about the pool table.

 **Richie:** Oh, babe, trust me. I’ve met you. I know you’re not gonna forget about the pool table. 

**Jimmy:** Let’s hope that your truth envelope isn’t ‘I spent a stupid amount of money on a light-up pool table’, or that’s gonna be a real easy win for me. Shall we begin, gentlemen?

 **Richie:** Please. End my torment.

 **Jimmy:** Oh, your torment is just beginning. Eddie, which envelope should Richie open? Left or right?

 **Eddie:** Uh, right, I guess. No, left. Whichever. Yeah. Right.

 **Richie:** See, this kind of rigid, in-the-box thinking is exactly why I didn’t consult you about the light-up pool table.

 **Eddie:** Bite me.

 **Richie:** Babe, you know I would, but you’ve got this thing about mouth germs. _[He opens the right envelope and reads from it]_ Oh, that’s a spooky segue. When I was younger, in order to impress a boy, I wrote a pamphlet about oral bacteria, and now it’s handed out in all Maine dental offices.

 **Eddie:** What the hell? Why would you do that?

 **Richie:** Nothing says ‘date me’ quite like oral microbiology, babe, you know this. It’s the ‘oral’ part. Makes it way sexier than normal bacteria. 

**Jimmy:** Why did you think it would impress the guy you liked?

 **Richie:** _[Doing a very bad Barney Stinson voice]_ Have you met Eddie?

 **Eddie:** It would _not_ have impressed me!

 **Richie:** It would though, babe. You’re impressed right now. I can tell. You’re just hiding it behind, uh, confusion and disgust.

 **Eddie:** I just can’t imagine you committing to an entire pamphlet. A poster, maybe…

 **Richie:** I would do anything for love.

 **Eddie:** Yeah, but a pamphlet.

 **Richie:** I’d even do that. 

**Jimmy:** So to clarify, you made Eddie a pamphlet about oral bacteria? How did you know so much about oral bacteria? This must have been in, what, 1942? _[audience laughs]_

 **Richie:** Hey, you’re 2 years older than me! And my dad was a dentist. 

**Eddie:** _[to Jimmy]_ That’s true. 

**Richie:** Don’t help him out, you’re not supposed to be working together on this. That’s bullying. 

**Eddie:** It’s definitely not bullying. 

**Richie:** Yeah, you’d know. You’re the biggest cyberbully there is. Cyberbully of the year, 2019. That's not an official award, but it should be, and you'd win it, hands down.

 **Jimmy:** But is he a cyberbully who’d be impressed by encylocopaedic knowledge of oral bacteria? I’m not sure.

 **Eddie:** I'm not even a cyberbully!

 **Richie:** Oh, dude, you don’t even _know_. Nothing gets this guy hot like when I know stuff. 

**Eddie:** Rich - 

**Richie:** I used the word ‘analogous’ correctly in context the other day and he practically had to rub himself off against a table. 

**Eddie:** Jesus. I can’t wait for our friends to watch this. I'm gonna have to turn my phone off for a week.

 **Richie:** Don’t even get me started on when I speak French. 

**Eddie:** It’s just impressive, asshole!

 **Richie:** I’m half French, it literally couldn’t be less impressive. It’s exactly the same as me speaking English.

 **Eddie:** Yeah, well. You can barely do that on a good day, so that makes the French doubly impressive, you dick. 

**Jimmy:** So was this an informative pamphlet? Were there photos?

 **Richie:** Uh, yeah. I snuck into my dad’s office after hours and stole loads of his patients’ dental records and made copies. It was probably super illegal, but my heart was at stake, so. 

**Eddie:** So you were gonna give me an illicit dental pamphlet?

 **Richie:** In hindsight, I can see why this might not have been the most romantic gesture, but c’mon. You would have loved it. _[He grins]_ Anyway, it was a coded message. 

**Eddie:** How? 

**Richie:** Well, teeth are a bone, aren’t they?

 **Eddie:** Oh, my God. Firstly, teeth are _not_ bone and you know this, you absolute moron, they’re made of calcium, phosphorous and bunch of other crap. Your dad’s a dentist. You absolutely know this. And secondly, what kind of a dumb message is that? ‘I want to bone you, here’s a photo of Mr Levi’s periodontal ligament’. Nothing kills a mood like a root canal, Rich, and I feel like you know this.

 **Richie:** _[to Jimmy]_ So as you can see, he would definitely have been impressed by a pamphlet on oral bacteria. 

**Jimmy:** Yeah, I can see that now. I’m saying it’s true. 

**Eddie:** I’m going to say it’s false, because I hope it is, and all I have is hope right now.

 **Richie:** Spaghuardo is right. It’s actually a lie. _[He grins]_ It was a zine, and it was about Legionnaires’ disease.

 **Jimmy:** Man, what the hell.

 **Richie:** In my defence… _[he pauses]_ Nope, I got nothing. Really hoped something might come, but nope.

 **Eddie:** How the hell do you write a zine about Legionnaires’ disease?

 **Richie:** Loads of cartoons of really unhappy lungs saying things like, “oh no, I have Legionnaires’ disease,” and experimental poetry about aerosolized water. I think some of them were acrostic. There may have been a sonnet.

 **Eddie:** Please tell me you still have copies of this masterpiece.

 **Richie:** Of course I don’t, babe. I reeled off twenty five copies on the science lab photocopier and then I sat outside and cried for half an hour about dying alone as I burnt them. 

**Eddie:** Jesus. 

**Jimmy:** Your love story is so timeless. 

**Richie:** Yeah, I had like, actual fantasies of you keeping that zine in that fanny pack of yours. Like, slow motion day dreams of you unzipping that fanny pack and pulling out my zine, licking your fingers to turn the page…

 **Eddie:** Oh my God, stop, we get the idea.

 **Richie:** I was fourteen! Don’t judge me! You’d have totally gone wild for that thing. It had _statistics_ , babe. _Data_ on _electrolyte levels_.

 **Eddie:** Yeah, well, unless you’re gonna produce a copy of it from that other envelope…

 **Richie:** That’s so mean. I just told you, I burnt them all in a very theatrical moment of teenage trauma and queer pain. Be impressed, babe. Fourteen year old Richie needs it. 

**Eddie:** _[laughing]_ I am impressed. That photocopier was a bitch. Making twenty five copies of anything on that piece of crap is very impressive. 

**Richie:** Hell yeah. Does this mean you’ll go out with me after all?

 **Eddie:** _[still laughing, wiping away a tear]_ Yeah, I guess.

 **Richie:** Sweet. _[To Jimmy]_ I have a date! 

**Jimmy:** So I saw. You guys are really weird. 

**Richie:** Yeah, but we’re, like, straight weird, which makes us queer normal. 

**Eddie:** Normativity is an inherently anti-queer concept, and you know this. 

**Richie:** You know, my Truth envelope just said ‘I find Eddie super hot when he talks queer theory.’

 **Jimmy:** _[Laughing]_ Shall we see what Eddie’s envelope says? For the game that we’re not done playing? My God! I feel like a substitute teacher.

 **Richie:** Yes, sir, sorry, sir. Uh, I pick the left envelope.

 **Jimmy:** If you’d be so kind, Eddie. 

**Richie:** Careful, Spaghuardo. Don’t get a papercut. My mom isn't here to kiss it better.

 **Eddie:** Screw you. _[He opens the left envelope and reads from it]_ Uh, I was bullied at school - 

**Richie:** True. I win. 

**Eddie:** You’re an asshole. _[He keeps reading]_ I was bullied at school by a cannibal.

 **Jimmy:** Oh my God. Is this in the famous murder town?

 **Eddie:** Yeah.

 **Jimmy:** And was he caught?

 **Eddie:** Yeah, he got detention a few times. 

**Jimmy:** I meant for the cannibalism!

 **Eddie:** Oh. Yeah, he went to jail. For, uh, eating people. 

**Jimmy:** Man. You want to weigh in on this, Tozier?

 **Richie:** I’m not saying a thing. I was there. Don’t want to unduly influence your judgement. 

**Jimmy:** You can still participate!

 **Richie:** Fine. Was he, uh, practising cannibalism when he bullied you?

 **Eddie:** He was! 

**Richie:** But he didn’t eat you?

 **Eddie:** He did not, no.

 **Richie:** Never even took a cheeky bite?

 **Eddie:** No. 

**Richie:** Not even a nibble, say, from your elbow? Somewhere no-one would even notice? No sneaky snacks from Spaghuardo’s kneecaps?

 **Eddie:** Not even. He just pushed me into lockers and called me names that I’m not allowed to repeat on this show.

 **Richie:** And you never thought to introduce him to your mom? She would have kept him fed for months, dude. 

**Eddie:** He had taste, sadly.

 **Jimmy:** I can’t process this. How did they find out that he was a cannibal?

 **Eddie:** Oh, they found loads of half-eaten body parts in, uh, a sewer. And he was... also there.

 **Richie:** Mid-chomp?

 **Eddie:** I don’t think so. 

**Richie:** So they didn’t catch him in flagrante delicto? 

**Eddie:** I wasn’t there, asshole, how do I know what he was doing? And don’t speak Latin to me.

 **Richie:** Just trying to establish some basic facts, Spaghuardo. Help you to get your story straight. Did you ever meet this esteemed cannibal again?

 **Eddie:** Not until he jumped out from behind me in a bathroom and stabbed me in the face thirty years later, no.

 **Jimmy:** … right. OK. This is. Well. 

**Richie:** Truth or lie, Jimmy?

 **Jimmy:** God, I hope it’s a lie. I’m saying it’s false. Or I’m going to take back both your invites to my Christmas party.

 **Richie:** I never actually got an invite. I figured you were just being homophobic. 

**Jimmy:** True or false?

 **Richie:** That you’re homophobic? I don’t know, man, I guess - 

**Eddie:** It’s true. _[pause]_ Uh, the cannibal thing. Not the… homophobic thing. 

**Jimmy:** You were bullied by a _cannibal_?

 **Richie:** In Eddie’s defence, he was _exceptionally_ bullyable. 

**Eddie:** Screw you, dude! He bullied you, too! 

**Richie:** _[somewhat proudly]_ Hell yeah he did, because I hung out with you, babe, and your neon green fanny pack. 

**Jimmy:** The bullying part, I get - 

**Richie:** Hey, don’t be mean to my boyfriend.

 **Jimmy:** \- it’s the cannibal part I’m struggling with. 

**Eddie:** _[shrugs]_ That’s Derry. 

**Jimmy:** _[faintly]_ That’s Derry… Right. OK. As soon as we’re done filming this, I’m falling down the Wikipedia hole, aren’t I?

 **Richie:** You’re lucky it’s just Derry’s Wikipedia hole and not Derry’s actual, festering sewer hole. 

**Jimmy:** Let me guess. You fell down it. 

**Eddie:** Twice. 

**Richie:** It was like having sex with Eddie’s mom all over again. 

**Eddie:** Hey, that’s not fair. Derry at least had rudimentary sanitation. 

_[They high five across the table; Jimmy looks completely lost]_

**Jimmy:** I think, fellas, that I should read my envelope now. _[He turns to Eddie]_ Eddie, as you’re our guest of honour, would you be so kind as to pick the envelope?

 **Richie:** Oh great, we’re gonna be here for half an hour while you choose between two identical envelopes again. 

**Eddie:** Screw you. The left envelope. 

_[Jimmy picks it up and starts to open it.]_

**Richie:** Still time to change your mind, Spaghedwina. 

**Eddie:** It’s an envelope, Rich. The stakes could not be lower.

 **Richie:** I don’t know, man. The stakes could be your mom’s standards. They were pretty low. 

**Eddie:** Hence why she apparently had sex with you. 

**Richie:** Hey, you have sex with me on a regular basis. What does that say about you?

 **Eddie:** Clearly, being bullied by a cannibal left some psychological scars. 

**Jimmy:** Although I hate to interrupt this, uh, poetic exchange of sweet nothings, I’m contractually obliged to read this.

 **Richie:** Oh. Sorry. Go ahead, man. 

**Jimmy:** So good of you to give me permission to read out my own envelope on my own show. 

**Richie:** Yeah, I’m notoriously generous. 

**Eddie:** You literally made me write you an IOU when I borrowed your toothpaste because you’d forgotten to buy more.

 **Richie:** Yeah, but in my defence, I did then turn the O into a little heart and it was adorable.

 **Eddie:** Fair point. 

**Jimmy:** _[Reading off the card]_ I got drunk and made out with Ryan Reynolds at the Emmy after party in 2016.

 **Richie:** Absolutely not. Don’t believe it for a second.

 **Jimmy:** Why not? It happened!

 **Eddie:** I’m with Rich on this. Ryan Reynolds would never cheat on Blake Lively. 

**Richie:** Wait, you know about Ryan Reynolds?

 **Eddie:** Uh, yeah, Rich, I don’t live under a rock. I know about Ryan Reynolds. Want to test me on more 2019 trivia? Ask me who the president is? Who won the Best Actor Oscar? [Who beat you to the Emmy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21313327)?

 **Richie:** Ouch. Low blow, although I guess that’s to be expected, coming from such a cute, tiny man. You can’t reach the higher blows. Blows are like our casserole dishes in that regard. 

**Eddie:** I can’t believe you said the word ‘blow’ twice and didn’t make the obvious joke. 

**Richie:** _[lasciviously]_ Nah, I figured that could be your _job_ , babe. 

**Eddie:** I literally hate you. 

**Jimmy:** Uh, so how about that true confession, guys? How about that?

 **Richie:** Oh! Yeah! Tell us about the makeout sesh, Jimmy. Were his lips as buttery soft as they look on all those airbrushed perfume ads I keep getting on Facebook? 

**Eddie:** You know they base those ads off your browsing habits. Just saying.

 **Jimmy:** They were very soft, actually. And he tasted of strawberry.

 **Eddie:** Oh, false, false, false. He’s definitely a mint man. 

**Richie:** You can’t possibly know that!

 **Eddie:** I do! 

**Richie:** What, you can tell what someone’s lips taste like just by looking at them?

 **Eddie:** Approximately 70% of the time, dude, yeah. 

**Richie:** And how do you test your hypothesis? You been smooching a lot of people without my knowing, Eds?

 **Eddie:** No, asshole. You can smell it on their breath. And I abso- _[beep]_ ing-lutely guarantee that a man like Ryan Reynolds, who’s had to lay a sloppy wet one on just about every woman in Hollywood, uses breath mints. 

**Richie:** God, you’re hot when you deduce people’s mouth smells.

 **Eddie:** Yeah, well, see if I deduce yours for you ever again, asshole. 

**Richie:** Only because you know it’ll taste like your mom’s - 

**Jimmy:** Oh, would you look at that! Time’s up. Time for the verdict. Thank God.

 **Richie:** Oh. Uh. I’m gonna say it’s false.

 **Eddie:** Yeah, I think it’s false.

 **Jimmy:** It was actually…

_[A pause; the audience starts to laugh]_

**Richie:** I’m on tenterhooks here, buddy. Like when I edge Eddie’s mom.

 **Eddie:** You’re on tenterhooks when you edge my mom, dude? Really? That makes zero sense. Why would _you_ be on tenterhooks when _she’s_ the one being edged? Do you even know what edging is? You know it’s not just doing it on a bed that’s too small for your lanky ass and falling off the end of it, right?

 **Richie:** I very clearly meant that your mom was on tenterhooks, Edward. I clearly know what edging is, even if my syntax needs some work. 

**Eddie:** Yeah, well, lucky for you I know how to work your mom. 

**Richie:** That’s cyberbullying, babe. 

**Eddie:** Cyberbullying? I’m cyberbullying you in person, Richie? That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, and you say twelve dumb things before breakfast on a good morning.

 **Jimmy:** It was true. 

**Richie:** What?

 **Jimmy:** It is! We had four vodka martinis and Blake Lively dared us to do it, and neither of us wanted to disappoint her, and one thing led to another, and - 

**Richie:** And now you’re having a torrid affair with Ryan Reynolds? Jimmy, you dog! 

**Jimmy:** I mean, it was only one makeout session.

 **Richie:** That’s what I said to Eddie, and now look at us. 

**Eddie:** You never said that. Your exact words were ‘oh holy shit, let’s never stop making out ever, can we physically make out for eighteen hours or would we wear our lips down into just, like, raw meat?’ and I had to kiss you to shut you up. 

**Richie:** I remember it very differently. 

**Eddie:** Do you, now?

 **Richie:** Yeah. I remember that I’d lit, uh, candles everywhere, and Barry White was playing on the stereo, and we were both wearing tuxedos and I sort of grabbed you in a super suave manoeuvre and dipped you real low and said something totally James Bond-esque in a husky voice, and my kissing technique was beyond critique. 

**Eddie:** I mean, that’s almost entirely wrong. 

**Jimmy:** Only almost?

 **Eddie:** Yeah. He did try to dip me, but then his back twinged and he dropped me on the couch. 

**Richie:** I had the best intentions! 

**Eddie:** And Barry White wasn’t playing. The TV was on, even though we’d been out all evening, and so we had our first kiss to the romantic sonata of the shopping channel. And you were wearing bright green Crocs. And also I kissed you first, asshole, so stop making it seem like you romanced me. 

**Richie:** I took you to dinner!

 **Eddie:** Yeah, to Olive Garden. You had a coupon. 

**Richie:** _[puts his head in his hands]_ I’m so lucky you kissed me anyway. 

**Eddie:** _[smiling]_ Yeah. Me too. 

**Jimmy:** OK, I’m ending this segment before it becomes too explicit even for the censors. This has been True Confessions! See you after the break! 

_[audience applauds; screen fades to black]_

* * *

Tweets liked by **Richie ‘Make Eddie Propose 2019’ Tozier** **✔** _ **@richietozier**_

> **Propose Eddie @tozienerd**
> 
> Him: wuu2 bb
> 
> Me: just at home, u?
> 
> Him: wanna come over?
> 
> Me: hmm not sure
> 
> Him: ive put the shopping channel on ;)
> 
> Me: _[gif of Eric Andre screaming 'let me in! Let me in!']_
> 
> **Dave Nolan @wheresmybrunchbitch**
> 
> If he's your man, then why did he sit on my doorstep and cry as he burnt a Legionnaire's Disease zine? :/ :/ :/ #idontevenknowwhatthatis #butitsoundsfrenchsoitsprobablysexy
> 
> **Arthur B @billdenbroughnumber4fan**
> 
> If we don't get a Richie Tozier interview on French TV immediately then I'm reporting it to the authorities 
> 
> _[attached photo: the meme of Gayle, saying 'Okay, was anyone gonna tell me that Richie Tozier is fluent in French or was I just supposed to find that out by binge-watching his clips on YouTube?']_
> 
> **EK4RT!!! @ek4rt**
> 
> thanks everyone for gathering here today, on this, the most important day of my life. i would just like to inform you all of the following: eddie kaspbrak's forearms, eddie kaspbrak's eye rolls whenever jimmy laughs obnoxiously, eddie kaspbrak laughing so much at richie's legionnares zine that he literally cries. thanks for being here for me today. appreciate it.
> 
> **Eddie Kaspbrak's Clapbacks @eddieclapsback**
> 
> Can't believe Jimmy's surprise wasn't a huge on-screen proposal from Eddie... this is a hate crime (but the suspenders would have sufficed I GUESS)
> 
> **Beverly Marsh** **✔ @bevmartian**
> 
> _replying to @jimmyfallon_
> 
> Let's talk about your costume department. I'm thinking sequins next time. And thanks for the parcel! Eddie really appreciated it. ;)
> 
> **Eddie Kaspbrak** **✔ @ekaspbrak**
> 
> _replying to @bevmartian_
> 
> You know I didn't. _[attached photo shows Richie giving a thumbs up to the camera, gleefully wearing a pair of suspenders over a truly hideous pair of red flannel pyjamas. They are not a Beverly Marsh original.]_

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the big gap between uploads! A family member went into hospital and it has been a Whole Thing. I actually have another 4 (gulp) installments planned in this series, and they're all half written, because this is my life now. Which is fine. 
> 
> Also, can you tell that I just want Jimmy Fallon to stop laughing hysterically whenever people, like, respire in his presence


End file.
